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I've never understood the attraction of Larkin. May be a cultural thing. mark At 08:10 PM 2/22/2008, you wrote: >Good to be reminded of this the other day, but I see himself called it thin >ranting conventional gruel. >And the BBC programmed it between Faure and J Mitchell... > >FAURE >L'Horizon Chimerique - Diane, Silene >Jonathan Lemalu - bass baritone >Roger Vignoles - piano >EMI 7243 5 75203 2 4 > >01:17:56 >PHILIP LARKIN >Going, Going >Jamie Glover (reader) > >01:20:35 >JONI MITCHELL >Big Yellow Taxi >Ladies of the Canyon >REPRISE 7599-27450-2 > >Išve put this up because it is probably Larkinšs most obviously >conservationist poem. However, I think his sentiments turned out wrong. > >He wrote it aged 50, fairly late in his poetry-writing career. Although he >lived till 1985, he wrote few poems after his last collection, High Windows >in 1974. By then he was getting pretty grumpy. He had lived through 30 >years of post war austerity, municipal socialism, high-rise blocks and >regional development grants. How was he to know that the sunlit uplands of >Margaret Thatcheršs revolution were less than a decade away? > > GOING, GOING by Philip Larkin. (January 1972) > >I thought it would last my time - >The sense that, beyond the town, >There would always be fields and farms, >Where the village louts could climb >Such trees as were not cut down; >I knew there'd be false alarms > >In the papers about old streets >And split level shopping, but some >Have always been left so far; >And when the old part retreats >As the bleak high-risers come >We can always escape in the car. > >Things are tougher than we are, just >As earth will always respond >However we mess it about; >Chuck filth in the sea, if you must: >The tides will be clean beyond. >- But what do I feel now? Doubt? > >Or age, simply? The crowd >Is young in the M1 cafe; >Their kids are screaming for more - >More houses, more parking allowed, >More caravan sites, more pay. >On the Business Page, a score > >Of spectacled grins approve >Some takeover bid that entails >Five per cent profit (and ten >Per cent more in the estuaries): move >Your works to the unspoilt dales >(Grey area grants)! And when > >You try to get near the sea >In summer . . . > It seems, just now, >To be happening so very fast; >Despite all the land left free >For the first time I feel somehow >That it isn't going to last, > >That before I snuff it, the whole >Boiling will be bricked in >Except for the tourist parts - >First slum of Europe: a role >It won't be hard to win, >With a cast of crooks and tarts. > >And that will be England gone, >The shadows, the meadows, the lanes, >The guildhalls, the carved choirs. >There'll be books; it will linger on >In galleries; but all that remains >For us will be concrete and tyres. > >Most things are never meant. >This won't be, most likely; but greeds >And garbage are too thick-strewn >To be swept up now, or invent >Excuses that make them all needs. >I just think it will happen, soon.